


And I Feel Fine

by mamey2422



Category: Good Girls (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:47:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23328736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mamey2422/pseuds/mamey2422
Summary: Apocalypse Beth and Rio AU.It shouldn’t have been a surprise that they would be two of the last ones left. They were both survivors after all. Once a week, Beth would walk. And walk and walk. She would look for other survivors, scavenge. The whole neighborhood had been picked through but Beth walked farther and farther out each time, looking for food, medical supplies, anything that would allow them to keep living. She always made certain to make a specific stop on her way home. Rio’s building.
Relationships: Beth Boland/Rio
Comments: 38
Kudos: 144





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is pandemic inspired which is stressful and anxious in real life but hopefully still a little bit of an escape in this purely fictional fic, which is not at all a reflection of my beliefs on what will happen with current events. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. Title borrowed from the R.E.M. song.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that they would be two of the last ones left. They were both survivors after all.

It started with bans on large gatherings and non-essential business closures, then mandatory quarantines, then martial law. Banks closed, then bridges, then borders. Everything, one by one. At first there were long lines for horrifically expensive gas and food. But then infrastructure fell apart in seemingly a blink - no power, no electricity, no running water, no food. The snaking long lines got shorter and shorter until looting left nothing left to buy.

Help will come, everyone thought. FEMA or the army. Somebody, anybody. The kids had talked bout Batman and Iron Man swooping in to save the day. Y _ou don’t need a superhero. Super daddy is here_ , Dean had said. It was a joke, something to get the kids smiling. But Beth had naively hoped Dean would find a way to save them, to get them out of this. But the greater the pressure, the more Dean faded into the background. His helplessness stung at first, but reality that Beth would have to be the one to save their family, once again, set in quickly.

Help never came. The infection spread too quickly. The sick spilled out of the hospital rooms, into the hallways, onto the streets. Peace grew thin as piles of the infected mixed with victims of the disgruntled mobs. No one could have imagined how much worse everything would become. How could they know what they were watching was the beginning of humanity’s downfall. Beth held it together, for her family, her kids. She never understood in movies and TV why people stayed in the face of disaster. But she got it now. She was one of them. There was a whole life, a whole home, a whole family that surrounded her. It wasn’t so simple to pick it all up or leave it all behind. _We’ll get through this_ , she said, hoping she was right.

Then the infection mutated and the dead became the undead. Then came the day her hands were covered in blood. Dean’s blood, the black and thick gore of a zombie. Dean had been bitten, always ignoring her warnings to be more careful. She knew the instant she saw his stiff legs, jilted steps, stretched arms, and muddy eyes that he was no longer Dean. That was the day she learned exactly where the temporal lobe was, and what it felt like to stab a knife into that part of the skull.

She mourned him quickly, partly because of necessity, partly because their relationship had been over years before. The sense of loss was real, though, especially for the kids. Beth honored him, buried him in the backyard, using a rock as a makeshift tombstone. They each went around the their small semi-circle and shared their favorite memory of him. The kids retold stories of vacations and playing on a bouncy house and fireworks. Beth paused on her turn, reflecting on their twenty years together. _He made me a really nice wooden cabinet,_ she finally settled on.

From then on, Beth stopped seeing them as people. She had to. It was the only way to kill as many as she needed to and would need to. They were after her flesh, her kids’ flesh. It didn’t matter if it was their old babysitter or bank teller. They had to be stopped. It was strange how they used to be just ordinary people having an ordinary life. Then they became something else entirely.

When the bombs came, to wipe it all away in one fell swoop, no one expected it. Their whole house shook, parts of it crumbled away, but they survived.

It was then that Beth insisted that Annie and Ben come stay with them. They were stronger and safer together, they could pool their resources. Despite an initial few weeks of panic and complaining, it turned out that Annie was a fierce zombie killer. _Kill the brain, kill the ghoul_ , she’d shout right before plunging a knife into their skulls, quoting one of her favorite movies, Night of the Living Dead. She embraced her role, and Beth welcomed her zest for booby traps and makeshift home security. Beth would often find Annie sitting on the front steps, a cigarette in hand, leaning casually back on her elbows as if the world wasn’t ending around them. Beth thought about scolding Annie about the the smoking but never did. The warning so superfluous, and cigarettes would run out eventually too.

Strangely, life went on. People adjusted to a new normal. Even if it was like a war zone, even if the enemies were undefined. Beth was a planner, that’s what she did best, so she came up with a new one. Her new routine was simple but critical. Stay alive. Bad situations were no longer something she talked or wiggled her way out of. Instead, she evaded them, prepared for them, anticipated them. Despite some damage from the bombings, they still had a roof over the heads, the destruction focused on the more dense urban areas of Detroit, Grand Rapids, Warren City, Sterling Heights.

Food was scarce but Beth had managed to get a stock pile of canned good so no one was starving. Meals consisted of different combinations of peanut butter, rice, and canned vegetables. Gone were the days of elaborately presented lunches but Beth did her best, even if it required a lot of imagination to see a dinosaur in their plates of rice and beans. They had a precious jar of honey they used sparingly, for special occasions only. Like birthdays or the day they found a forgotten battery. The kids alternated turns on what they put it in until that too died.

Once a week, Beth would walk. And walk and walk. It was dangerous to go alone but sacrifice was what being a parent meant. It took an apocalypse for Beth to be thankful for Dean’s impulse to buy a gun. She carried it using a cross-body strap, along with a small backpack with ammo, a knife and small bottle of water.Beth started early in the morning, wanting to be back home before it got dark. She didn’t really sleep anymore so an early start time was easy. She would look for other survivors, scavenge. The whole neighborhood had been picked through but Beth walked farther and farther out each time, looking for food, medical supplies, anything that would allow them to keep living.

The city had become small regimes of people running their own section of streets, making their own laws. Most were civil. Beth learned who she could trade with, trust. Like the quirky old man who helped Beth make a homemade filtration system using grass, sand and charcoal in exchange for their leaf blower. Rain was their lifeline now and Beth had become so grateful for the cloudy overcast days that signaled a downpour. She also learned who to watch out for, to stay away from the ones that loved the anarchy, that stole the streets for themselves. For whatever reason, to those people, there was something appealing about the end of the world.

Some streets were packed with abandoned cars, hastily left behind when the realization hit that driving was going to get them nowhere. Beth had an odd nostalgia for those days of bumper to bumper traffic, drivers aggressively beeping their horns, people pushing and shoving their way between cars that were stuffed with personal belongings. At least the living outnumbered the dead back then.

Beth always walked by Ruby’s old home, visiting as if honoring a memorial. She didn’t stay long, it was dangerous to linger. She stayed just long enough to prove that she hadn’t forgotten her best friend.That the part of her that knew joy and laughter and support was still alive inside her. Stan begged Ruby to leave. Somehow he knew things were worse than they seemed. Being Beth’s ride or die was no longer reason enough to stay. They couldn’t risk Sarah’s life. They had fought so hard for it in the first place. It was in the early days, when they still had a sliver of time to escape, before Detroit Metro Airport shut down. Stan had a distant relative on a German military base. It would take the black market to get the flights, but he could take them in, keep them safe, get them access to Sarah’s medication. Beth knew it was the right choice and backed up Stan. Their farewell was sloppy with tears and devestation. They were mostly silent, words about seeing each other again too uncertain, too untrue to say out loud. Instead, they hugged each other tight with an ache to remember each other forever.

The Paper Porcupine was on her route, her pace always quickening when she walked by, sickened by the distant memories of a different life when her biggest worry had been printers and nail polish and plates. She passed her old salon. Beth stopped caring about her hair long before it shut down. She wore it long now, often in a braid, a number of grey strands mixed in with the blonde.

She always made certain to make a specific stop on her way home. Rio’s building. It still stood, but barely, a good portion of the bricks crumbled in the obvious pattern of a bomb radius. She never saw him there, unsure if she wanted to, or hoped to or if she was even looking. The money, real and fake, that had been so important to them had become so meaningless so quickly. Replaced by the currency of food and weapons and self preservation. Their already tenuous partnership had dissolved into thin air, and so had he.

She wondered if he survived. Marcus too. Their last exchange had been brief. The boxes of money had gotten fewer and fewer but there were no threats or anger. _That’s it?,_ he asked. All she could do was nod, no explanation necessary. Rio opened one of the boxes as if to count it but instead took out a pile of stacks and left it on the table. _You’re going to need this_ , he said, a quiet sadness in his tone, before he turned and walked away. Beth wanted to say something, to not look back on this with acidic regret, but the words didn’t come. They never could with him. She never saw him again. She liked to imagine him and Marcus and Rhea together in some luxury bunker, in some remote location surrounded by high end bells and whistles like leather recliners and a greenhouse. Or maybe they were like so many others underground in a root cellar struggling every day to stay alive among the infection, the danger, the fear.

***

Beth had grown suspicious of banging. Explosions and gunshots and groaning had become the the soundtrack to their lives. But there was something about loud, sudden noises that specified the precursor of danger. So when Beth heard an insistent knocking at her front door she was immediately on alert. It wasn’t the undead on the other side. They didn’t knock. It couldn’t be anyone she knew. Mrs. Karpinski survived, bless her soul. So had Elaine and her family, a few blocks over. But they rarely visited each other, keeping an unspoken distance of polite smiles and friendly waves. No one had food or energy to spare. It was easier to avoid those difficult conversations than deny help. But they agreed to a warning system, each of them keeping a piece of green paper on the front windows signaling all was okay. If they ever saw a red one, well, that meant the opposite. 

Thanks to Annie, the door was reinforced with four locks, each with a chain, but still Beth’s instincts kicked in.

“I have a gun,” Beth shouted, silently signaling everyone to get into the basement. The banging became more urgent. Beth heard the desperation behind the pounding. She peeked through the living room shades, struggling to see around the corner. Her vision was blocked but she saw a glimpse of black, a familiar frame of shoulders that had her running to recklessly open the door.

When Beth saw Rio for the first time since the world ended then came back to life in this devestated version of itself, he looked the same, but different, and uttered just one word.

“Marcus.” Rio was cradling him in his arms. His eyes were closed but not in the comfort of a child’s sleep. The ashen pallor of his skin gave him away. Was he sick? Bitten? He didn’t look like one of them, but maybe it was a fresh bite. It took six minutes for someone to turn. Either way, letting them into her house would be risky, asking for trouble. As if reading her mind, Rio continued.

“It’s not that. A fucking looter...” Rio’s voice cracked and he paused. He lifted Marcus’ shirt and it was then that Beth saw a wound that was too large for such a tiny body.

“Come inside,” Beth said urgently, reacting to the unspoken plea in Rio’s voice.

They lay Marcus down in her bedroom, and Beth took stock. Gingerly, she peeled off his shirt. The gunshot was on his side, near his waist, big and round and already clotting with dried blood. Beth didn’t think there were organs there to be worried about, not that she would entirely know, but there was no exit wound so she did know they had to get the bullet out.

“My first aid kit, under the sink,” she said to Rio, nodding to her bathroom. Her supplies were meager but she could make it work. She called for Annie who greeted Rio with a simple nod as if it were totally normal for him to be there, her surprise only coming when she saw Marcus bleeding on the bed. Beth instructed her to get fishing line, clean towels and her sewing kit.

She wished she had something to give Marcus for the pain, what they were about to do would hurt, but hopefully his lack of awareness would compensate. Beth washed her hands, sterilized tweezers and a needle in the flame of a match and the small bottle of alcohol she rationed only for true emergencies. It wasn’t lost on her that there was less than a quarter of it left.

“Hold him down,” Beth said, looking at Rio. “Thread the fishing line through needle,” she instructed Annie.

With a deep breath, Beth cleaned the area and probed the tweezers into the wound. Marcus murmured and twisted, but Rio held him firmly. Beth tried again, deeper, until she felt something hard. It took a few tries but she managed to clamp on and pull it out. Holding his skin in place with her fingers, Beth began stitching. She pushed a needle through countless quilts and costumes and clothing, but going through skin made her swallow back bile as she focused, tried to hold her shaking hands steady. The finished product wasn’t pretty, there would be an ugly scar, but it was clean and secure.

When all there was left to do was wait and see, Beth finally had a moment to look at Rio. He was thinner than usual, but most people were. His scruff a full beard. He was wearing his usual black jeans and black t-shirt with a hoodie and jacket. There was a layer of dust on everything and his t-shirt looked so worn she was afraid it would dissolve under her touch. She had a million questions. Where had he gone? Where was he going? What happened in between? But she asked just one.

“How did you get here?”

Rio dropped his head as if the question weighed heavy on him. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply. When he finally looked up his expression was imperceptible. But when he started talking the words spilled out. His story was like so many others, not too different from Beth’s. Simple but devastating. When he realized the enormity of what was happening it was too late to leave. They tried crossing to Canada, got really close too, but there’d been an outbreak along the border, a bad one and they were forced back. Rhea had gotten separated from them in that fight. He stayed days looking for her but never found her. He liked to think she made it. He returned to a home destroyed by a bomb, his warehouses run over. They’d been staying with Mick and were doing okay, the basics were covered. Rio scolded himself that after all of that it was an ordinary gunshot that he couldn’t protect his own son from.

Beth didn’t try to console Rio or get him to sleep, knowing he would never rest until his son was okay. He lay next to Marcus on the bed, his long body curled around the smaller version of it in constant vigil. Beth convinced him to have a bite food, gave him some water and his space.

She didn’t tell Rio everything was going to be okay because she wasn’t sure she believed it. That was proven true the next day when Marcus spiked a fever, sweating and trembling and eyes glazed in unresponsiveness. Rio desperately sponged his son, talked to him, begged him to stay alive.

Beth wanted to offer encouragement but this wasn’t the time for platitudes. Determined to make a tiny difference, to keep Marcus from being another blameless victim of this horror, she walked into the bedroom, gun already around her shoulder.

“We’re walking,” she said, firm and resolute, handing Rio a blade.

It was in those miles that she and Rio fell into a familiar rhythm of deals and negotiations. Her regular route of contacts didn’t have what she was looking for but JT knew someone who knew someone who might. _Be prepared to give up some sweet swag_ , he cautioned with a smile. Three stops and several miles later, tapping into Rio’s own network that still existed in the shadows, though smaller and less connected, they managed to procure amoxicillin in exchange for a bag of coffee, toothpaste and a can of gas in a three way barter. There were only three pills but anything would help. Exhausted, they raced home as fast as their feet would allow to get them to Marcus. And then they waited.

When Marcus finally turned the corner, the boost of medication fighting off the infection his weak body couldn’t on its own, Beth broke down, tears trailing down her cheeks. Rio held her, his own tears dripping onto her, and she buried her face in the curve of his neck. He smelled of sweat and the lye of her handmade soap. Her brain felt too tight, unable to process the moment. That someone had been on the brink of death but survived. That there was still hope in this crazy world.

“It’s ok,” Rio mumbled against her hair, his grip tightening around her. “It’s going to be ok.”

Beth closed her eyes. A thought fleeted through her mind to tell him she was fine, she could take care of herself, but she let it go. Instead, she enjoyed the feel of his body, his warmth, his presence. Beth forgot what it was like to be touched and held. It was especially strange coming from Rio who had been so cold and distant with her the last time they were together. A lifetime ago. She couldn’t even remember why they hated each other. They stayed like that for a long time, swaying a little bit in the comfort of the rare peaceful moment.

“Thank you,” Rio whispered when they seperated. He traced a finger along her face, pushing her hair off her face. The gesture skyrocketed Beth back into the past, into a pool of emotions and attraction she wasn’t sure she wanted to run away from or jump into.

“You should get some rest,” Beth said, taking a step back from him, from the familiar tension of the pull she always felt around him. Even a zombie apocalypse couldn’t weaken it.

Seeing Rio sleeping on her bed, freshly showered as best as their outdoor setup allowed, in clean clothes from Dean’s closet, made Beth reflect on who he was, who he’d become in the blur of survival. Was he the same? Still stubborn and dominant and powerful? She wondered if he recognized her, who she’d become. The Beth he knew was gone. But this was not the first time she shed a skin, grew another. Rio had experienced first hand her metamorphasis from housewife to criminal. But she was a world away from the woman who desperately sought power through money and whatever means it took to obtain it. Fault and blame had appealed to her in different ways in her old life. Something she could pass on to others, onto him. Now, though, she embraced it. Had no other choice. Every moment of her family’s ability to live was the direct result of her actions. Unlike the looters who celebrated carefree that the end was coming, Beth fully gained her sense of responsibility. It finally settled deep within her. She understood him, finally. 

***

The next day Rio handed her a small nip-sized bottle of bourbon.

“Thank you,” he said, almost sheepishly, recognizing the inadequacy of what he was offering in exchange for his son’s life.

Beth was speechless, both at the gesture and at the gift. Alcohol of any kind had long ago become an unattainable luxury. People peddled moonshine, tapping into the market opportunity, but real stuff had gone the way of myth and folklore.

“Where did you get this?” Beth held up the small bottle as if looking at the holy grail.

“Don’t worry about it.”

She poured half in a glass for her and half for him, raising them in a toast with silent smiles. 

After that, the color of their lives changed, a new breath surged in.They’d been living in suspended animation, existing with only the barest of vital of functions, keeping everything else dormant. Beth had been controlling everything, trying to at least, since her world imploded onto itself. But she decided to let whatever was happening with Rio just happen. Marcus healed, slowly but surely, the sounds of his footsteps a welcome addition in her home. Rio’s too. She started sharing a bed with him, mostly because it was the only way the would all fit. Partly because they wanted to. She started sleeping through the night with him next to her. Slowly, daydreams and thoughts of romance and sex weaved in too.

One morning, Beth woke up facing Rio. The soft sunlight slanted through the glass door, light puddling around them. She looked at him as he slept, the sharp angles of his face, the firm contours of his body, the relaxed set of his eyes and mouth. She was so used to seeing him alert, anticipating, same as she. She traced the outline of ink on his neck until he stirred awake with a hint of a smile at the edges of his lips. Beth laced her fingers through his.

“Stay.” Beth tightened her grip just a little. Maybe it had been assumed, maybe never a question, but she was no longer willing to keep words unspoken.

“Stay,” he repeated. 


	2. And I Feel Fine Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Apocalypse Beth and Rio AU
> 
> Even though civilization crumbled all around them, Rio saw remnants of the Beth he once knew all around. But she was different too. Gone were the false bravado, the reckless decisions. Restraint and caution and responsibility taking their place. There were other changes too. Like the lean muscles he noticed on her arms, from all the fighting, all the surviving. He never looked away when she caught him staring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pandemic inspired which is stressful and anxious in real life but hopefully still a little bit of an escape in this purely fictional fic, which is not at all a reflection of my beliefs on what will happen with current events. I hope everyone is staying healthy and safe. Title borrowed from the R.E.M. song.
> 
> Thank you to @moneyraindownonU for the inspo for this chapter.

Rio was used to danger, used to death. Intimidation and violence were normal in his world, and he always considered himself hunted. There was always someone willing to kill the king to be the king. So when his enemies changed from rival gang members to zombies, Rio was adaptable than most.

Not that he could have ever prepared for the hundreds of violent, gory images that played behind his eyes now. Like the crunchy squishiness of a blade going through a zombie skull. Or seeing a human body ripped to tiny shreds by the undead in a matter of seconds.

Marcus getting shot though, almost dying, was what destroyed him. Rio watched in slow motion as Marcus’ tiny body crumpled to the ground, as he saw the only thing that made life worth living slipping away. _Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die_ , he repeated, as if his words would be enough. With Marcus bleeding in his arms, life draining from him with every passing minute, he ran and didn’t stop until he reached Beth’s house. The instinct that led him there was confusing and vague, but he didn’t question it.

He knew Beth was alive, that she survived the infection, the zombies, the bombings. Of course she had. Mick told him who’d heard from a guy who traded with her for a leaf blower. He stayed away though. Beth was disorienting and complicated, and avoiding death at the hands of zombies was exhausting enough. He kept Beth in the distant past as each day hardened him more and more against the world. So when their paths crossed again, when he was at his most desperate, and Beth freely offered him sanctuary, saved Marcus’ life without even a pause, he almost didn’t understand it. When he started to think about life and happiness again, he didn’t trust it.

He survived all this time through motion, by running and darting and constantly looking behind him, keeping Marcus close by his side. Staying still seemed impossible. But slowly, bit by bit, he was able to let go of his intense, feral grip on being a lone wolf. When Beth asked him to stay, quietly and sweetly, of course he did. He never could stay away from her.

He knew he made the right choice. The invisible weight on his shoulders lightened. Marcus started smiling again. Once, a burst of his laughter stopped Rio in his tracks, his brain unable to process the sound. Joy was so foreign in a world conditioned to screaming and gunshots and sadness.

Not that living with Beth was completely easy. It was strange to blend their lives together, to pick up new habits, as if they didn’t have a whole other complicated history together of power plays and gunshots and sex and infatuation. In an unspoken agreement, neither of them brought that up, neither of them cared to relive it. Between then and now, they’d fought so hard to simply stay alive, that it was too draining to dwell on the past, to pretend they meant nothing to each other. Perspectives and priorities changed. And Beth saved Marcus.

Even though civilization crumbled all around them, Rio saw remnants of the Beth he once knew all around. Like the determined way she kept her home filled with warmth and security. The carefully organized rations, notebooks with instructions for their home made filtration system, the list of different uses for herbs and spices or the DIY activity books she’d made for each of the kids. He saw it in the confident way she negotiated barters, refusing to get short changed.

But she was different too. Gone were the false bravado, the reckless decisions. Restraint and caution and responsibility taking their place. There were other changes too. Like the lean muscles he noticed on her arms, from all the fighting, all the surviving. He never looked away when she caught him staring.

He was nervous the first time he slid into bed with her, even as platonic as her invitation was. _The couch is too small_ , she insisted. _It’s fine_ , she promised. Her house was already bursting full of people even before adding him and Marcus into the mix, so options were limited. The thought of a comfortable mattress was appealing. So was the thought of Beth.

Her gentle, even breathing became Rio’s elixir for sleep. No more nightmares, no more insomnia. He always stayed on the edge of the bed, creating personal space, creating an imaginary boundary to keep them from getting tangled up, emotionally, physically, in the deep twisted way they always did. But every morning they woke up wrapped around each other, her arm tight around around his chest or his body curled completely around hers. Only in the darkness of slumber did they allow themselves to give in to the temptation and comfort of touch and body heat. With the sunrise, though, they always separated, acted as if there wasn’t this charged, pulsing thing between them.

He started joining Beth on her scavenge missions. Two was safer than one, and Annie preferred staying home with the kids, fine-tuning her newest booby trap or makeshift weapon. Beth’s map of Detroit was filling fast with the red circles that marked the areas she already covered, and it was getting harder and harder to go farther out by foot. But once a week they set out, looking for supplies, survivors, a little bit of hope. Sometimes they talked a lot, with nostalgia about the before times or matter-of-factly about the now times. Never about the future, that word slowly disappearing from everyone’s vocabulary. Sometimes they were silent as they walked, lost in thought, tired.

The day they decided to walk to the old Chrysler factory started normally. Beth and Rio woke up early, had a breakfast of spam and baked beans, packed up their weapons and set off. They ran into a zombie horde early on, but even that was normal. Rio learned to listen carefully for them, tuning his ear over time to the dull hum of moaning and dragging and chomping that served as a preemptive warning. So he was not surprised when they saw a horde feasting ravenously on a body. A young female, barely still alive, screaming, begging for help. But there was none to give. Beth raised her gun to take her out of her misery. Her aim was excellent now, so she could hit her in the head, spare her from turning, from having to be one of them. But the gunshot would put the attention on them, and the horde was too big. Beth dropped her gun in defeat, and they quietly walked past.

The factory was cold, empty and decaying, much like the world outside it, and they entered carefully, slowly, weapons drawn. Danger took many forms, shadows were never just shadows, so Rio kept his eyes alert, focused ahead. He could hear Beth’s breathing, slow and steady, in and out, as they walked side by side. Little remained of the once vibrant space. Factory equipment, books and keys strewn across the dirty concrete floors. Production lines where car after car used to come to life in shiny colorful glory were now rusty and rotting.

“They’re here.” Beth whispered, nodding to a horde writhing behind a closed glass door. The hinges rattled, the glass splintered from their frenzied exertion. How they ended up locked in there would remain an untold story. Before they could turn around a zombie staggered toward them, seemingly out of nowhere. Beth took it down with an efficient stab to the base of the skull. But then another came and then another and it was then that Rio knew they were in trouble.

Zombies were deceptively strong. They walked around in various stages of decomposition, the effects of rigor mortis and rot making their body parts simultaneously stiff and flimsy. But they had a unique kind of determination that came from the primal urge to feast. Their hands were like claws, even with missing fingers, easily dragging their prey into their maze of hungry mouths. And their teeth like vice clamps, snapping and chomping through flesh and muscle with ease.

They weren’t fast but they loyally followed each other. So five quickly became dozens which became hundreds which became hopeless. Like now, a river of zombies streamed into the room from every direction, the outburst of activity attracting them like moths to a flame, turning the room into a deathtrap.

One of them, a security guard in his former life based on the tattered remains of his uniform, managed to get a solid grip on Rio’s arm, lunging and clutching and snarling. The right side of his face still had hints of the man he used to be. But the whole left side was coming apart, the skin flapping off, both rows of his teeth exposed down to the jawbone. Seeing them up close always made Rio wonder what they saw through their sunken black eyes. Made him realize just how terrible the world had become that mutated, empty, flesh-eating things like this existed. Rio stabbed him in the temple, and started running, Beth a few steps behind having fought off her own determined attacker. They sprinted through a maze of machinery and doorways, trying to put as much distance between them and the undead as possible.

When Rio finally stopped at an exit door, he turned to look at Beth. She should have been right behind him. But she wasn’t. All the hairs on his arms went up, his blood chilled. Suddenly the big cavernous room shrank in around him. He resisted the urge to shout her name, calling out would attract them, so he swallowed it into a tight ball in his throat. His body started shaking, so did his mind, at the thought of Beth being bitten. She hadn’t even yelled for him, maybe never had a chance to. He’d seen it happen hundreds of times, the split second moment when one of the undead came from behind or the side, just outside your field of vision, and claimed your flesh as theirs. Surprise wanderers, they were called. He tried to shut off the images, tried to convince himself they hadn’t gotten to her. 

Hearing the horde getting close again, Rio barged outside. He killed three zombies on his way to the front of the building, stabbing their skulls on autopilot, fighting the panic threatening to take over his body. His muscles moved as if underwater, all his effort and speed met with resistance. The edges of his vision blurred, maybe from tears, unable to focus. Frantic, he circled the building, over and over, in and out, searching for Beth, but there was no sign of her.

Rio struggled to catch his breath, to think coherently. His brain spun, dry heaves pulsing out of his stomach, trying to expel the despair already consuming. His job was to protect Beth, to keep her safe. He had failed.

Just then he heard a gunshot, the echo pulling him out of his spiral and back to reality. He ran in the direction of the noise and saw Beth standing by the entrance gate, her gun limp in her hands. Rio wanted to run to her, hug her, yell at her. But his relief was short lived. Why was she just standing there, staring? Why was she so motionless? Vacant? She was covered in blood. Was it hers? Rio’s throat tightened, so did his grip on his knife. He fought back the sob that welled inside him, and approached her quietly, from behind.

He’d know right away. He’d need just one second to see her face. The undead seemed to feel no pain, and he’d make it quick. He almost killed Beth before, in his other life. But he’d never been able to do it. This thing between them, this connection, was like oxygen to him. But if she was one of them, it wouldn’t be Elizabeth he was plunging a knife into. It would be killing something that only used to be a human. Only used to be the woman he lost himself in.

Slowly he reached a shaking hand to Beth’s shoulder. When she turned around, she was completely herself. There was no mistaking it in her big, deep blue eyes. He pulled her into a hug and held her tight, so tight. She was warm and soft and hugging him back. She was alive. But remembering there was no such thing as too careful, Rio pulled back. He gently frisked her, his hands running all along her arms, legs, sides, underneath her shirt. Finding no evidence of a bite mark, he hugged her again, tried to absorb the shudders from her trembling body, the tears streaming down her face. He didn’t ask her what happened, he didn’t need to. He recognized the stunned display of being at the brink of death. He saw it in his past life with new gang members. He saw it more than he cared to remember ever since the world fell apart.

Beth didn’t talk on their long walk back home. Annie greeted them at the door, ready to lay into them about returning so late, but one look at Beth, a silent head shake from Rio, and she turned around.

“Slumber party night, everybody. Bring your sleeping bags into the basement,” she said as she herded the kids down the stairs to give Beth space. Only when they walked inside did Beth speak.

“Will you warm some soup for the kids? The cans are on the counter.” Her voice was quiet but steady.

“Yeah, sure.” Rio looked at her suspiciously, relieved that the shaking had stopped but concerned at the empty, drained look in her eyes. He watched her closely as she made her way to the bedroom, placing her gun in the closet, kicking off her shoes, stripping her jacket along the way. He heard the splashing of her makeshift shower. The combination of jerry can and hose was simple but felt like a luxury, even more so when they let the water can sit in the sun to the warm it.

When Rio got into bed that night, there was no pretending space mattered. He couldn’t stay away this time. Not from the heat of Beth’s body, the softness of her breathing, the beating of her heart. He inched closer, dipped his head toward hers until he could make out the flicker of moonlight in her eyes, her expression matching his, open and vulnerable.

When he thought Beth was gone, lost forever, he let go of everything, their past, the things roaming outside, and all that remained was regret. That he’d held back with her, that his actions hadn’t spoken more clearly, neither had his words.

Rio slid a hand into her hair, letting the strands fall through his fingers. He traced the outline of her face, relishing the softness of her skin, nudged into her neck, inhaling her. His fingers trailed over her arms, leaving warm goosebumps in their wake, settled on the curve of her hip. Her breath caught when his thumb skimmed under her shirt, brushing back and forth.

Ever since the infection and the zombies, hands and bodies had become mechanisms for survival, for pushing back against everything that was storming around them. Human needs were quickly displaced by violence and exhaustion. Slowing down and being gentle and using touch for pleasure seemed foreign, like learning a new language. But even after all this time, Rio quickly fell into the arousal spreading like wildfire inside him. His pulse raced, his skin buzzed, his body came alive.

There was an inevitability to the moment their lips touched. Grazing at first, slow and measured, but quickly becoming hungry and consuming and greedy. The kiss immediately felt familiar, but also different, more raw, more primal. They separated only enough to tug their clothes off.

Rio kissed a slow, lingering path down Beth’s neck, cupping her breasts, felt them tighten under his touch. He kissed them, the valley between, then down her ribs, lower over her stomach. She moaned when he buried his face between her legs, the vibrations of satisfaction unfamiliar to his ears. He almost forgot what bliss sounded like. Her whimpers turned him a little wild, his tongue and fingers desperate and frenzied, but so was Beth, clutching at him, bucking against his face, wrapping her legs tight around his head as she came.

Rio trailed kisses up her body, letting her savor her orgasm, letting her feel the weight of his length on her stomach. He stared down at her, lips parted open, blue eyes glazed. When she curled a fist around him, started stroking, tracing her thumb over his head, Rio groaned. He wanted to give in to her, give into what she offered. But not like this.

Heat crackled through his body as he positioned himself between her legs, feeling how wet and ready she was. His first thrust, being inside her again, felt so good, so right. He wanted to tell her that, to tell her everything he felt but words failed him. None existed to describe her affect on him. Instead, he started moving, long and deep. He slid almost all of the way out then back in, hard. Not rough, just taking his pleasure, needing to give Beth hers.

In silence, they found a perfect rhythm. She rocked her hips up into him, asking for more and he gave it to her. More touching, more rubbing, more kissing, just more, more, more. He was a man consumed. He held nothing back. He fucked her hard, slow, fast. He gave her everything he had, everything she wanted.

Beth moaned and murmured, her hands fisted into the sheets, her hair a wild tangle. The whisper of his name on her lips when she came was enough to destroy him, to snap his control. He let it go without resistance, pumping faster, harder, more furiously. His spine tingled, his muscled tightened, until his vision went white and his entire body shook. Rio collapsed next to Beth, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close to him.

Among a million other things in their new world, love also looked different and Rio almost didn’t recognize it taking shape around him. If he wasn’t careful, it would be easy to become numb, to take on the traits of the zombies all around them, to exist only half alive. But Rio wasn’t willing to do that with Beth, even as dark and dangerous as living was.


End file.
